Brittle
by Ellen Million
Summary: One of Manticore's mistakes shows up... (complete!)
1. One

Title: Brittle  
  
Author: Ellen Million, ellenmillion@yahoo.com  
  
Homepage: www.ellenmilliongraphics.com  
  
Summary: One of Manticore's mistakes shows up.  
  
Author's Notes: (at the end)  
  
Disclaimers: Dark Angel etc., are not my property. No infringement intended.  
  
********************  
  
See this story, with illustrations, at http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/darkangel/  
  
********************  
  
  
"Homegirl, are you one of those idiot savants? That's just wicked." Original Cindy accepted two beers from the bartender and handed one to Max.  
  
Max had been maintaining a tab at the bar, and the bartender was demanding payment on the balance. She didn't get paid at Jam Pony until the weekend, so she had a bar-wide bet that she could pick up a number, by ear, from speed dial. The regulars didn't bet against her, but the cliental here rotated, so there was no problem finding suckers to take money from. She'd done this before, so the barkeep wasn't surprised, and Original Cindy had witnessed the feat several times.   
  
Max grinned and accepted the thumps and congratulations. She probably would not have noticed the blonde girl at the end of the bar who was gazing at her if Original Cindy hadn't spotted her first. "Good enough to eat," Cindy said with a purr. Max took a slug of her hard-earned beer and followed her glance.   
  
The girl was taller than Max, but not by much, and had the same build. Her hair was a pale cornsilk color, straight and glossy and long. Her face was lovely; good classical lines. What caught Max's attention was the fact that she had her eyes fixed on Max with something like hunger. Her eyes were blue, the kind of blue that can be seen across a smoky bar filled with flung words and bludgeoning egos. And they were nailed to Max as if she would never let her out of her vision. She made no move from her barstool, though, and Max feigned boredom and turned back to Original Cindy, who was still drinking her fill of the stranger. "Why's she bee-lining you like you're her next meal, Max? How do I get her to look at me like that?!"  
  
Max shrugged, more than a little un-nerved by the stranger's attention. She thought about her trick with the speed-dial and wondered if she had made a mistake. Her beer was tasteless in her mouth. "Probably thinks I'm hot stuff," she quipped. "I'll give her your number."   
  
Original Cindy licked her lips. "Do that."  
  
Max played with her glass for a moment, one eye restlessly finding exits from the room. Finally she stood, too confined, too restless and too nervous to enjoy her beer or Cindy's company. "Gotta drive," she said.  
  
Cindy rolled her eyes. This wasn't the first time Max had ditched her to go night-riding. "You and that bike," she said. "I don't know how you can afford all the gas you use."  
  
Max grinned at her, but caught sight of the blonde girl, still watching her, and her humor dissolved. "Later."  
  
It was raining, as it usually did in Seattle; a dank, soaking, persistent drizzle descended from the heavens steadily. Max checked her chain, unconcerned with the moisture. One of the links had gotten bent, and it was rubbing. The last thing Max needed was a warn-out link to fail at high speeds. She was more alert than usual, and unsurprised to hear soft footsteps behind her.   
  
"What's your number?" The voice was sweet, soft, almost musical, and desperate.  
  
"I don't swing that way." Max left no room for argument in her voice, and no invitation for further conversation. She realized belatedly that the girl had spoken so softly that no one with normal hearing would have been able to pick out the words.  
  
"I meant your barcode." The amount of uncertainty in the girl's voice was disarming; she sounded like a child, though she was almost certainly a few years older than Max. Perhaps it was just the absence of a city accent.  
  
"Sister, you have got the wrong girl." Max stood up and finally turned to look. The girl was pale in the dim light, almost colorless in the mist to Max's night vision. She was dressed in a sheepskin coat, parka-length, with a prim gray wool skirt showing beneath. A pair of gloves were being mangled in her hands.   
  
The chain was showing wear, but would last until Max could get another one. She turned away from the girl, whose hair was becoming plastered to her head, leaned the bike off of its stand and started to mount, but the pale figure came closer, putting a hand out to Max.  
  
Max reacted, snatching the hand and pulling the girl to pin her against the bike. She was expecting a fight; Lydecker wouldn't send someone after her who wasn't prepared for her, and any of her siblings would have reacted to their training and been ready to defend themselves. She wasn't expecting the girl to struggle weakly, and with futility in a position that was easy to escape from, and she wasn't expecting the sharp snapping sound from the girl's finger. Max knew the strength it took to break a bone, knew it like only a killer could, and she had not exerted anything close on the waif-like girl.   
  
The girl ceased her struggles, and gasped, "Stop, please! My neck, check my neck!"  
  
Max brushed aside the golden mane with her free hand, and looked hard at the barcode that stared back at her. The number was unfamiliar to her, and much lower than anyone in her class had.   
  
"I suggest you start talking," Max said, not willing to let the girl up yet. Tattoos were easy to get in Seattle.  
  
"Can we talk over coffee? This is a little uncomfortable, and I'd like to splint my finger." Casually, as if she broke her finger every day.  
  
Max thought a long moment, and let her up; there was little threat in her, even if her very presence was something of a concern. "Let's go to the Bean Bag."  
  
The girl got up stiffly, carefully, and reached with her un-injured hand into her pocket with exaggerated care. She dug around for a moment and came up with a Popsicle stick and a roll of medical tape. "You never know when this stuff will come in handy," she said with a smile.   
  
Her finger wasn't bleeding, but it was quite clearly broken, and starting to swell already. She grasped it carefully with her opposite hand, and with an air of experience, twisted the bone into the correct orientation until it snapped into place. Max watched, fascinated and trying not to show it, while she splinted the break with the Popsicle stick and taped it firmly in place, all with one hand.  
  
She finished and looked at Max expectantly. "I don't know where anything in Seattle is; you'll have to tell me where the Bean Bag is." Her hair was plastered to her face, but she showed no signs of the wet chill in the air.  
  
Max looked at her searchingly. She didn't want to let this girl out of her sight, anymore than she had been willing to let Max go without talking. She walked to the other side of her bike, mounted, and said, no hint of warmth or invitation in her voice, "Get on the bike."  
  
The stranger mounted with grace, grasping Max's waist lightly. She didn't seem un-nerved by the fact that Max didn't turn on the light, though the street lights in this area were nearly all burnt out, and didn't flinch when Max popped the bike into gear and took off with all the gusto that the Ninja was capable of. She actually had the balls to laugh, her face near Max's ear.  
  
Max parked with her usual flair, stopping on a dime at the curb, needing only to kick down the stand to be parked.   
  
"My mother would have flipped out if she'd known I was on a bike going that fast, with no helmet," the girl said with a laugh as she dismounted. She flipped back her hair and gave Max a smile. "I'm Gen," she said, hand extended.   
  
Max didn't accept the hand, but she did answer, briskly, "Max," as she walked into the coffee room.  
  
It had once been upscale, trendy, and clean, but the lack of a food and drug administration showed itself clearly at the Bean Bag. It was dim-lit to conceal the fact that it needed a good cleaning with industrial strength bleach, and there were incense cones burning at each table; perhaps for atmosphere, perhaps to cover the stale smell.  
  
It was crowded, mostly with angsty, greasy teenagers. Max found a booth, evicted the inhabitants with a few choice words and a good stare, and settled herself on the plastic bench.  
  
Gen slipped in opposite, wide-eyed at Max's tough act and gazing around at the decor in wonder. 'Country girl,' Max thought. "What do you know about Manticore," she started abruptly.  
  
Gen met her gaze without a flicker. "I was one of the rejects, I'm guessing before your class."  
  
"Manticore kills its rejects."   
  
A waiter came and asked for an order. Max asked for a double mocha and said, "She's paying."  
  
Gen answered, "Oh, really?" and asked the waiter for a glass of milk.   
  
The waiter raised one eyebrow at her, popped his gum and told her, "It's $10 a pop for milk."  
  
Gen shrugged and waved him away.  
  
When he was out of earshot, she turned back to Max. "My mother smuggled me out of Manticore when I was about 14 months. She was a temporary nurse; every one on the project was rotated through pretty quickly, probably so they didn't pick up too much information. She overheard one of the supers talking about getting rid of the whole flawed batch of us." There was a note of irony in her voice; familiar to Max from her own voice when she spoke of her childhood.  
  
"Mom... Well, I realize she's not my real mother, but she raised me, and is more of a mom than anyone else. She found out about a plan to start a fire as a cover-up for our deaths, and she got me out the same night. I suppose they think I died in the fire. Mom told me as much as she could find out about Manticore; that I was genetically enhanced to be a soldier. We were a pretty useless batch as soldiers go, though. 7 of the 20 kids in my class died of heart complications before they got to a full year old."  
  
Max was hooked. "But those of you that survived would be the strongest of the batch, why would they kill you off?" It felt odd to be speaking of Manticore to anyone but Logan or Zach.  
  
Gen waved her splinted finger. "Brittle bones. I've broken nearly every bone in my body at least once. It's a pretty serious liability in a soldier. I can jump 20 feet straight up, but I break my ankles when I land. And a brain chemical deficiency. I'm dependent on..."  
  
"Triptophen," Max finished.   
  
Gen's eyes widened at that. "You, too?"   
  
Max grimaced. "They didn't get all the bugs out of my class either."  
  
The waiter brought their drinks, Max's steamed and smelled remotely of chocolate, Gen's milk was warm to the touch and had lumps, but she stirred it with a spoon removed from one of her pockets, and drank it eagerly.  
  
"Did your mother name you Gen out of some kind of sick humor?"  
  
"As in genetically enhanced?" Gen laughed. "No, she named me Geniveve. I started calling myself Gen after she told me why I broke bones and no one else in my class did, and why I could teach myself to read at age 4, and see in the dark and hold my breath for 3 minutes and..."  
  
"...Never got cold?" Max guessed.  
  
Gen nodded. "And didn't need more than an hour or two of catnap a night."  
  
Max raised an eyebrow. "I thought that was taught."  
  
Gen leaned forward. "How long were you at Manticore? How did you escape? Are there others?"  
  
Max swallowed the last of her mocha. "I want you to meet someone."  
  
Gen's eyes widened. "More of us?" She sounded so hopeful. Max could remember what it was like to have such hope. As if finding others from the same lab could somehow magically make up a family. Gen swallowed the last of her milk in a rush, not minding the chalky trail that it left in the glass. "Now?"  
  
Max laughed; Gen's eagerness was contagious. "Sure, Logan doesn't have regular sleeping hours."  
  
"But he sleeps?" Gen stood up, buckling her sheepskin coat around her waist and re-pocketing her spoon.  
  
"Yeah, he sleeps."  
  
**************  
  
Alright! Let me know what you think, pretty please. (First fanfiction.net posting; which doesn't mean I can't take criticism.) I realize that it's not exactly original, but hopefully it's entertaining.   



	2. Two

  
Logan rubbed his eyes wearily and hung up the phone. He had forgotten about the time again. Bling was taking a well-deserved day off, and hadn't been there to remind him to eat dinner. Which was all right, because Max had just called and wanted to bring a friend over. "Should we bring something to eat, or will you feed us out of the warmth of your heart?" she had asked.  
  
Logan could never resist Max's requests for food. Or for anything, really. She had somehow crept into his life, despite his best efforts. "Just as friends," he told himself. "That's all we are. That's all I feel." Maybe if he told himself that often enough, he'd eventually believe it. Like Bling's idea of therapy. "Feel your legs. Imagine the muscles."   
  
Logan wheeled himself to the kitchen and flipped on the lights. He almost wished that it were a brown-out. With the brilliant lights, the chef's-dream kitchen seemed sterile, too bright, too shiny. Too isolated. "This is a fine mood to be in," Logan muttered to himself. He opened the fridge, adept, now, at positioning his chair so it didn't interfere with the arc of the door. Nothing looked good, though the vegetables were all fresh and the meat was all from recognizable animals. The freezer held nothing better.   
  
Finally he shrugged, "Pasta, like always," he said. The amount of bitterness in his voice surprised him.   
  
He washed the vegetables awkwardly, leaning out of his chair uncomfortably to reach the sink handles. The whole suite had been retro-fitted with the best in handicap accessibility, but that didn't mean it was easy accessibility.   
  
The pasta had finished boiling, and Logan was rinsing it in the sink, when he heard a scratching noise at the door. He grimaced; he had forgotten to unlock the door, and rather than knocking, Max was pulling her usual trick of picking her way in. He left the noodles in the strainer and rolled to the kitchen entrance to meet her.  
  
The lock-picking took longer than usual, and Logan was about to unlock the door himself, when the door opened in a peal of unabashed laughter. "I didn't have the advantage of all that great training you had," a light voice said, and two girls walked in.   
  
Max answered, "Next time, keep the blade pressed towards the door jamb."  
  
The stranger was a perfect foil to Max, pale and fair-skinned to Max's exotic dark looks; a hair taller, but of the same graceful build. She looked a few years older, but her face was clear of the street-wise look that Max frequently had. Next to Max's night-on-the town clothes, she looked conservative in a non-descript gray skirt and long sheepskin coat. They were both wet; it was raining out, and they both had grins like cheshire cats.  
  
Max walked in confidently, and nodded to Logan. "Logan, Gen. Gen, Logan." She moved towards the kitchen, scenting the air. "Alfredo?"  
  
Gen tested the air as well. "With fresh garlic and real olive oil," she exclaimed in delight. "I haven't had real olive oil in about three years." She extended a polite hand to her host. "Thank you for your hospitality."  
  
Logan shook it gingerly, questions clear in his face. "Glad to meet you, Gen."  
  
Gen moved into the room, drinking in the tasteful decor. "Nice wheels," she commented.  
  
Logan blinked. "Wheels?"  
  
Gen smiled at him. "The chair. You haven't been in it long, have you." It wasn't a question.  
  
"Does it show?" Logan wasn't at all sure what to make of Max's new friend.  
  
"Sure. You made a motion as if you would get up to shake my hand, and you don't seem comfortable looking up at people." Gen was matter of fact, without treading towards blunt. "I was in a chair twice for fractured vertebrae, twice for broken legs and once for a cracked hip."  
  
Logan collected his bottom jaw from his lap and tried to find something to say. Max swept in to save him. "Are you going to feed, us or let us waste away to the smells of your food?"  
  
  
The meal was delightful, both in food and banter. Max and Gen traded childhood stories, and Logan found himself both delighted by Max's uncustomary candor and jealous that she was so easy talking about herself to Gen, while he had to practically drag details from her when they were alone, or suffer the dark expression she usually wore when she spoke of Manticore. Gen was light-hearted about her youth, nonchalant about her weaknesses, and honest about her hopes and prides. Gen even made an effort to drag Logan into the conversation, though he was more interested in hearing about Max and Gen, and he found himself relating the story of his second cousin's attempts to sabotage his entrance into college.   
  
This is what Max had been searching for all along, he realized at some point during the night. She wanted someone like her, but without the dark past of Manticore dictating her actions. Gen was everything she had wanted; a sister to share her troubles with, who wasn't a soldier by training. Someone who understood her differences, knew her background, and could relate to everything that made her stand apart. Someone that Logan desperately tried to be, but couldn't ever really attain, bound by different laws of genetics and flesh.  
  
Dawn surprised them all, creeping fingers of light in through the enormous windows. They were in the living area of the apartment. Max was perched on the back of a couch near Logan, Gen was draped in an armchair swirling a goblet of milk as if it were fine pre-pulse wine, and Logan was beginning to feel as if his eyelids were made from concrete. He yawned enormously, and tried to hide it, but Gen noticed at once, and sat up in her chair with chagrin obvious on her face. "Max," she laughed, "We forgot about our super-powers, and our poor mortal friend is falling asleep in his chair!"  
  
Max grinned at Logan, more relaxed than he had seen her in ages, and bantered, "Logan's used to it. I'm such trouble to him."  
  
Logan smiled back and opened his mouth to tell her that she was never trouble, exhaustion having dampened his usual discretion, but another yawn escaped instead, and Max and Gen both rose to leave. "I have to be at work in a couple of hours anyway," Max said. She lingered though, while Gen got directions to the docks where she was planning to meet a friend, and put on her coat. "I'll meet you at The Bean Bag this afternoon," the blonde said with her infectious smile, and opened the door to the suite. Before she closed it, she shot back, "I'll let you tuck Logan in, Max. Sleep tight!" The door clicked behind her.  
  
Logan blushed, trying to hide his embarrassment. "You don't have to do that," he said.   
  
Max, surprisingly, seemed equally abashed. "So what do you think of my new sister?" she asked, changing the subject away. She was fingering one of the statues on the mantle, not meeting Logan's eyes. He thought suddenly that he had never seen her so vulnerable and happy at the same time. Usually a snappy, upbeat attitude was something Max hid behind, to hide a dark hunger for... Logan wasn't sure what exactly. This open, softer Max was something new that Logan didn't want to let go of, no matter how his eyes were craving sleep.  
  
"She's a delight," he said honestly. "It's hard to remember that she's from Manticore." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wondered if they were a mistake, but Max seemed to take it in stride.  
  
"Can you check out her story?" she asked, turning to look at him.   
  
"Sure," he said quickly. He could never turn her down.  
  
He started to wheel towards the computer room, but, in a flicker, Max was in front of him. "Not tonight, Clark Kent," she said. "We kept you up all night, and I won't have you losing sleep on my account."  
  
Logan wondered if she knew how much sleep he had lost over her since they had met, and as he was forming an excuse, another yawn escaped, and he allowed Max to take the handles of his wheelchair and steer him towards the bedroom.  
  
She didn't push him all the way in, though, and there was an awkward moment when neither of them was sure how to say goodbye.  
  
Max finally looked at a clock and said, "I have to take a shower before work, and I'd better not be late."  
  
With a smile, Logan turned his chair so that he could watch her leave, slinging on her jacket with a devil-may-care attitude. "Have a good night... er, morning," he said.  
  
Max smiled, her slowest, deepest smile. "Sleep well."  
  
The door latched behind her softly.  
  
************  
Authors notes: Please review, of course... and I promise there /will/ be more action in future chapters. Also, now taking votes: happy ending or grim?   



	3. Three

Author: Ellen Million  
Webpage: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com  
  
Brittle, chapter 3  
  
Seattle at dawn, on one of those days when she has wept herself dry, is one of those magical places where anything can happen, even sunshine and laughter in a place poorer than dirt itself.  
  
Max, sitting at the top of the space needle, watched the sun come up with pleasure and a child-like delight, hugging her knees to her chest. The day before had been perfect. Work had been easy, just demanding enough to be entertaining. Normal had been no worse than usual, and the rest of the Jam Pony gang had been their usual fun-loving selves. In the afternoon, Gen had sauntered in and wooed Normal into letting her take the rest of the day off, claiming to be a foster-sister in a strange mixing of truth and fiction that was somehow completely believable. After a less-than-usually-substandard cup of coffee (Gen again took a glass of the lumpy milk), she and her new-found sister went to Pike's Place for a day of window-shopping.   
  
It was a strange sensation to reach for the same object as someone and not always reach it before them, to remember and laugh over a poster with the same photographic exactness, or to be able to see the something from a distance and realize that her sister could see it just as well. Her sister.   
  
Max had told her about Zach and the other X-5s, Gen had shared stories about the hoard of cousins she'd grown up with. Gen wistfully asked if she could meet Zach, and Max had laughed. "I'm not even sure if he's alive, let alone where he is now." Gen was disappointed. "I'm working on it," Max assured her. "Logan's a wiz about getting information for me."   
  
That had earned a knowing look from the blonde girl. "You've got a crush on him, don't you?" She didn't wait for an answer, but grinned knowingly. "He likes you, too. It's so obvious." Max nearly choked, but Gen only laughed at her and shooed away her denials.   
  
When they had parted, in the darkest hours of the morning, Gen had spontaneously hugged Max, and told her, "I'm so happy that I found you, Max. You're the best thing that's happened to me in a very long time." Max had been flustered, but delighted. She'd gone at once to the Space Needle, in need of thought before returning to work. And all she could think about was the wonder of having Gen fall into her life.  
  
She was on time to Jam Pony, so there were few people about. Normal made a cutting remark about timeliness, and tossed her a package. "Thanks, Normal," she smiled at him. He'd wonder about that all day, she realized.  
  
She spent the day dreaming about a different kind of childhood, and looking back on her own with a critical eye. What would it be like to not walk about in a constant state of fear? To hear a gunshot without being certain it is aimed at oneself? To love without considering the security risk? Here she balked, thinking about Gen's flippant comments about Logan, and directed her thoughts elsewhere.   
  
When evening came in a rush of cool air and a gathering of clouds, Max stopped at home to change before she met Gen at Crash to introduce her to Original Cindy and Kendra.   
  
She arrived at Crash on the Ninja, and parked it in the alley. The bouncer who guarded the door knew her well, and knew to keep an eye on Max's bike. Max was always careful to keep the bouncer well-tipped; she knew how his loyalties leaned.  
  
Just as she was throwing down the kickstand, a whistling sound perked her ears, and, though she threw herself quickly to one side, something pricked through the arm of her leather jacket. She whirled to face the direction it had come from, and a dark figure from a window two stories up raised a weapon to fire again. Max dodged to one side, and a tagged dart lodged itself into her motorcycle seat. She took a moment to glance at her arm, awkwardly, and could see another tag protruding from the back of it. A feeling of dread swept her, followed almost immediately by a rush of nausea. She flashed a glance at the bouncer, who was studiously looking in another direction. Yes, she knew where his loyalties lay; someone had paid him well to look the other direction while this took place.   
  
She poised herself to run out of the alley, but almost at once, numbness took her legs, turning them to rubber beneath her. Coordination abandoned her, and she felt the pavement rush at her face.  
  
******  
Author's Notes: Well, this one was a bit shorter than the first 2 chapters, but this week has been NUTS at work, and this was a good stopping spot, so deal. :-) I really, really, really appreciate the reviews so far, they've been wonderful, don't stop! I have the plot pretty much worked out, but if there's something you'd like to see in future chapters, let me know. (Still taking votes on happy vs grim ending, too... I can go either way) Any ideas for including illustrations would be nifty, too... I have some sketches of Gen and Logan and Max that I'd love opinions on. (I can host them on my own webpage, but not sure if it's kosher to have the pictures coded into the story itself.)  
  



	4. Four

Logan hung up the phone without dialing again. "Chicken," he muttered to himself.  
  
He turned back to his computer screen. The television across the room was showing the news; Alaska had withdrawn from the United States and was issuing a two-week warning for all Federal and military units to be removed, with unlimited asylum granted to any personnel who wished to remain behind. The economic repercussions were fairly extensive, and oil prices in Seattle were already nearly doubled. Logan didn't really think that the oil prices were reflecting actual costs, though, and he was determined to find out who was making the obscene profits and stop them.  
  
He scrolled through another page of public business records, scanning for anything that read suspiciously; too much income, too little income, changes in policy, big layoffs without low profits. He kept coming up with nothing, and the words were beginning to blur before his eyes, but it was still easier than thinking about Max.  
  
How he envied her the self-control she always displayed. That carry-over discipline that she brought from Manticore was amazing. She didn't even realize what a remarkable creature she was, to have come through a childhood designed to turn her into a machine with a conscience and a heart. She was a blend more perfect than her Manticore creators had the vision to imagine; designed with strength, tempered by intelligence and humanized with one of the most generous, un-selfish hearts that Logan had ever encountered.  
  
Logan woke abruptly, checked automatically to make sure that he hadn't left a pool of drool on his arm where he'd fallen asleep, and tried to figure out what had startled him.  
  
Someone was pounding on his door, frantically, and shouting. The words weren't distinguishable until he had wheeled himself to the entry, and he could hear, "Logan! Logan, it's Gen! Please open up! Max... Oh, God, Logan!!"  
  
He unlocked the door as quickly as he could, and Gen fell into the room. She was dressed for a night on the town, but was disheveled and panicked looking. "Max, Oh God, Logan, they took her! Black vans, a dart, I couldn't do anything." She fell onto his couch and buried her head in her hands, sobbing.   
  
"What happened?" Logan asked, when the tightness in his chest subsided enough to allow words. He desperately hoped Gen wasn't going to be the type to get hysterical and unintelligible. He was relieved when she looked up at him. Tears were streaming down her face, but her eyes were intense, not frenzied.   
  
Gen swallowed hard. "I went to meet Max at Crash. When I was still down the block, I saw her turn into the alley to park her bike. A black van pulled up at the entrance of the alley," a deep breath, "and men in fatigues came out, two of them, went into the alley and carried Max out with them. She had a dart in her arm and was unconscious." Her eyes were agony. "I remember the license plate. It was from Wyoming."   
  
"Manticore." Logan spun away from her, unable to meet her eyes any longer and dizzy from the fact that he hadn't taken a breath during her entire story. "Give it to me," he said, crisply. He wheeled towards his computer, turning off the still rambling television as he passed it.  
  
Gen stood up and followed him, reciting the information. "What can I do?" she asked, falteringly.  
  
Logan met her glance once, saw too much similarity to Max in her gaze, and had to look away. "You can remember for me. Tell me everything about these men."  
  
Gen told him, giving the information like Max would have, detailed, precise, without any faltering or confusion. Unlike Max, her face was a mask of pain and uncertainty. Her cheeks were red where she scrubbed away tears, and she wrung her gloves in her hand awkwardly around the splint that still held her finger rigid. She hadn't taken off her coat, and one of the collars was sticking up, giving her a lop-sided little-lost-girl look.  
  
"Can you contact Zach or one of the other X-5s?" she queried.  
  
"Unfortunately, no. I've got a lead on a pharmacy that has been doing brisker than usual business with tryptophan in Detroit, but it's not enough to get anything conclusive from, let alone get any contact information." Logan was typing the license plate into another of his search bases.   
  
He waved Gen silent, made a quick phone-call to a source inquiring about traffic out of Seattle, thanked him, and hung up.  
  
"Good news?" Gen asked, hope in her eyes.   
  
Logan shook his head. "Traffic has been clear. They could be out of the Seattle area by now."  
  
Gen sat, finally, as if her legs had given out on her. "How do you get all these contacts?" she asked.   
  
Over his glasses, Logan looked at her, hard, and finally decided that if Max could trust her, he could. "You know that cable-hack who does the Streaming Freedom videos?"  
  
A ghost of a smile appeared on Gen's face. "One of my personal heroes. I've been an avid fan since I moved to the outskirts of Seattle four years ago."  
  
Logan tried not to look as pleased as he felt. "I'm Eyes Only." He was expecting some kind of reaction. A delighted smile, a gasp, something positive. He wasn't expecting Gen's face to drain of color. She stiffened in her chair, knuckles white at the edge of the chair. Her eyes bored into his with more intensity than he had yet seen in her, the blue that he had considered soft suddenly hard in her ashen face.  
  
She stood abruptly, and walked to the window. Her arms were crossed. "You couldn't have known to say that."   
  
Logan was baffled, momentarily distracted from Max's plight. "What do you mean?"  
  
Gen turned to look at him, and seemed a completely different person than the cheerful, sweet girl that had lounged on his couch and traded childhood stories with Max. "I've spent the last 6 years learning how to lie." Her voice was even different. Clinical, chilly, with a hint of something like self-loathing. She looked at Logan, who looked blankly back, not understanding. She sighed, and looked out the window again. "Lydecker sent me to find Max and bring her in, and to find out as much as I could about the other X-5s she may have had contact with. He's not an idiot, and when she stayed in Seattle, he knew that the way to get to her was to exploit her weakness. Her family. Me. I turned her in, Logan, and came back to get whatever information I could out of you."  
  
  
*******  
Author's notes: Did you guess?! Please let me know!   



	5. Five

"Why are you telling me this?" Logan was aghast.  
  
Gen inwardly cringed, but no hint of it showed outwardly. "The best lie is 99% true," she explained. "I /am/ Max's Manticore predecessor. My foster mother /did/ rescue me from the institute when I was 14 months. You probably saw the records of the fire when you checked up on me." At Logan's slow nod, she continued. "I /did/ grow up in Wisconsin with a dozen cousins. But you know that Manticore doesn't let go of its prototypes easily, even the flawed ones. They tracked my mother down when I was 16."  
  
She looked at the ruined outline of the city. It was close to midnight, but a nearly full moon pierced the clouds and etched the tallest buildings in silver.  
  
"I spent 2 years in intensive rehabilitation, Manticore-style. I was useless as a soldier, but that didn't mean I had no value. They originally tracked me down to keep me out of anyone else's hands. My genetic code could be the Rosetta stone for scientific research. Not the tell-all that X-5 DNA would be, but such an advance in technology as to jump-start the process. Once they had me, though, they weren't about to let me go to waste. Not in these economic times."  
  
She could almost feel Logan's eyes boring into her back, and she turned to face him. "I am as strong as Max, but more brittle, in so many ways. All that Lydecker had to do to ensure my cooperation was to take me back to my high school and ask me which one of my cousins was going to mysteriously disappear. I cracked like an egg, Logan. Two weeks of sub-tapes and limited food rations and I would have assassinated the president if he'd asked me to. Two years and I was considered ready to be a useful espionage tool under low supervision. For four years, I've been on a long lead; one of Lydecker's personal operatives in the Seattle area. Every other month I am permitted to see my mother, who lives in a gated military community in Idaho."  
  
Logan looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not to feel pity for her, but Gen raised one finger to him. "You asked me why I'm telling you this, and I didn't answer you. I want you to know what I'm giving up by doing what I intend to do."  
  
Gen walked to the television and tapped the screen with her splinted finger. "I wasn't lying when I said that Eyes Only was a personal hero. Lydecker never discouraged morality, he just discouraged morality that interfered with his agendas. Streaming Freedom Video was something to which I could attach a certain amount of faith. I never believed in God; I was built in a lab and my creators never attained holiness in my eyes. I never believed in politicians. Conflict of interest when you are regularly required to bribe, seduce or, in extreme cases, kill them. Eyes Only... You, were doing something I could believe in. Something that I could, probably, never be asked to act against. Lydecker pushed me past every single moral barrier I ever put up. I even betrayed family for him, but I swore..." Gen's voice broke for a moment and she wondered if there were new, genuine, tears on her cheeks. "I swore that I would never act against Eyes Only."  
  
She looked down at her hands and tried not to think about the times before. Lydecker, testing her, finding her weaknesses, turning her strongest points into her shame. Her youngest cousin, just six, found 'accidentally' strangled in a swing-set. The mental anguish of being responsible for the death, but so disgusted at herself for being so weak... so brittle. Tears were trained away. Guilt was motivation. Jobs were non-negotiable. No one had known about her personal obsession with the independent news-hack; Gen hadn't wanted to hand Lydecker any more information to use against her, more 'habits to break.' His way of breaking habits was effective, and Gen could feel traces of her humanity ebbing with every hard lesson that Lydecker felt obligated to teach her.  
  
At sixteen, she had been appalled by the ideas of lying, killing or sex as a tool. Just one year at Manticore and these ideals were swept aside like so much sentimental garbage. Lydecker was not pointlessly cruel, but he did see Gen as an expensive purebred; if not of show quality like his X-5s, at least a valuable tool which needed harsh training to reach potential. He never abused any of his kids, he even felt a sort of affectionate pride for them, but he never viewed them as people. Ferociously intelligent, useful and clever, but never with regard to their own free will. Independent thought was discouraged unless bent towards Lydecker's goals, and even then, not actively supported. And his idea of discouraging something was swift and immediate correction: punishment, and subliminal tapes, perhaps a round of particularly demanding training.   
  
Gen realized that the silence between herself and Logan had stretched taut. His eyes were an agony of confusion, dread and hurt. "What will they do to Max?" he asked finally.  
  
Gen closed her eyes, weary and not just a little frightened, but determined. "Nothing," she said very quietly. "I'm going to get her out of there. Lydecker pushed too far this time. I won't be his any longer, and I won't let Max suffer because my crisis of conscience was a few hours late."  
  
She opened her eyes and bored into Logan. "But she will need you very badly when she comes back. I don't have any illusions about the fact that they will scare her and demoralize her and I have already delivered the harshest blow by betraying her." A picture of her mother's face flashed before her. Betrayal was such a multi-faceted stone. Sometimes Gen believed that her mother thought that she had betrayed Gen by allowing herself to be good-behavior insurance. She wondered briefly if Lydecker would kill the kind woman who had raised her, and tried to convince herself that death was better than life as collateral. And if Gen's break were clean enough, perhaps Lydecker would believe that he could accomplish nothing with her family's death.  
  
Gen took up one of the pads that resided beside Logan's computer and sat down with a pen. "I need you to find out the pattern of traffic lights between here and SeaTac. Can you get yourself and Max a passport by tomorrow? What about a European Union visa? Also, I need a double dose of adrenaline to get the rest of the drugs out of her system. She will have burnt most of it off, but the extra help will give her enough reserves to get out of here in one piece. How much of your money is liquidable, or accessible outside of the US? Your position is more than compromised at this point, and Lydecker will take your interference personally."  
  
Logan blinked and obediently picked up the phone to call his contact for the fake passports. "I liked you better as the sweet, uncomplicated Gen. You were much less demanding."   
  
Gen smiled at him grimly. "That Gen hasn't truly existed in 6 years. Now I'm making a list of genetic problems that have shown up in the other X-5s, and their treatments, as well as a list of Lydecker's other operatives and support bases throughout the country. These won't be complete, as I wasn't in a position to know everything, but they will help you out. I'm also going to arrange Kendra a new place to live and get Original Cindy a new job. Not all of my contacts have been Lydecker-approved."  
  
Logan had the gall to look suspicious. "This is a pretty major reversal on your part," he said.  
  
Gen met his eyes, still writing in neat, perfect line. "Just a reversal back."  
  
*********  
  
Thank you again, for reviewing! I'd love to know what you think of Gen at this point. Sympathetic character? To wishy-washy? Thanks! Ellen  
  
http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com  
  



	6. Six

Chapter 6 version 2. Basically a re-write mostly at the suggestion of Nevermore (THANK you!!!). A little more fleshed out. If you read the first version, I'd love to know your thoughts on this version.   
**********  
Max became aware of herself in a rush, but could feel numbness in her legs and mind still. She did not open her eyes, but allowed her breathing to quicken and her heart to pound faster, burning off most of the drug that was keeping her sedated. She could still feel the sluggishness, and the reluctance of her muscles to obey her. She wondered, in an unfocused way, if this was what normal people went through when they woke up every morning. Kendra frequently complained of difficulty waking up, and of poor co-ordination before her coffee.   
  
Before she finally opened her eyes, she remembered the dart and the sensation of being picked up and carried. She scented the air and recognized the smell. The room that leapt into her vision when her eyelids rose confirmed her suspicions. It wasn't Manticore, but it was military, and Lydecker had been here. She was dressed in a stiff, blue, utilitarian gown. Mouth dry with fear and the aftermath of the drugs, Max stood, shakily. It was a small, white-walled room with a sealed concrete floor and ceiling. No vents. Just one heavy door, locked. It seemed too bright, and Max felt unsheltered.  
  
She leaned against one wall and slid to a seat. They would leave her here for some time, she decided, knowing that fear in solitary would do much of their interrogation for them. Fear as a motivator had been a repeated lesson during training.  
  
She remembered sitting in a chair, careful to keep herself still. Fidgeting was discouraged with an order the first time, with harsher discipline the second time. None of her siblings had budged a third time. Max tried to remember what the punishment had been, and couldn't. The haze in her mind must be worse than she thought.   
  
She ruled her mind into patient appraisal of the situation. How had Lydecker known to find her? Had someone been following her? Had one of her friends let something slip? Kendra certainly knew enough of the odd things that she could do, and Original Cindy would sometimes get boastful of her abilities. A memory surfaced: Gen had dared her to pick someone's pocket, and with her usual twist of humor, Max had picked Gen's, coming away with a folded piece of paper and a spoon. The paper, when Max unfolded it, was one of the Wanted ads with her own face sketched on it. Gen had burst into peals of laughter and explained that she had found it on a bulletin board behind a band poster and thought it was funny that it looked so much like Max. "You were buy buying cilantro at the time, and I thought we'd get a good laugh out of it later."  
  
At the time, the story had seemed entirely plausible, even funny, but something occurred to Max looking back. The picture had been free of pin holes or tape tears, and the creases were well-worn, as if it had been folded many times. Max recalled their conversations, trying to find suspicious trends. Gen had asked after the other X5s, even tried to meet them, but Max had understood that as only another lost sibling could. Max leaned her forehead against the cool door and sadly thought that Zach had been right - to know the locations of the other X5s would have been a security risk. Indeed, she would have told Gen everything she had known without hesitation.  
  
Max shook her head, and felt that something was wrong. She reached to touch her hair, and only encountered smooth skin. They had shaved her head; no wonder the room seemed too bright. Bastards. This was surely the first stage of reprogramming her. It played out like a lesson in her mind. Remove her from her environment. Take away reminders of her life. Immerse her in training, in re-indoctrination, work her body and mind to its limits again and again, until she'd forgotten that she had ever had any other kind of life; a happy dream of someone else's that never existed.   
  
Fight the system? Refuse to train? Lydecker wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone close to her if he thought it was the motivation she needed. Gen surely had reported about Original Cindy and the others at Jam Pony. Gen... through the fog of drugs, she had the clarity to feel incredibly pissed. Max's trust was rarely given, and that Gen should have gained and used and betrayed that trust so casually was an arrow of pain. And Logan had trusted her, too.   
  
Logan... Max's heart wrenched. How much had she revealed about Logan? Gen knew that Logan was the source of her information. What means would they use to get information from him, she wondered. Would they threaten to kill her? She wasn't afraid of pain or hard training. She wasn't frightened of torture or drugs. But she thought of Kendra and Herbal and Original Cindy... and achingly of Logan, and she realized she was desperately afraid of losing her humanity. She had learned affection and emotion, and to lose that now, to become a machine after having discovered her heart, was more frightening than dying.  
  
Perhaps she could play the system, pretend to go along with everything... and...? She couldn't go on from there. Become a good dog on a leash until she saw an opportunity to escape? Lydecker knew that she'd try that, and he would probably set up daily tests for her loyalty. And in the meantime, what would she do? Kill people for him? Destroy other people's lives to try to save her own? How did that leave her better off than being truly Lydecker's tool? Because she had a good heart? How far would that soothe her conscience? How long, she thought grimly, would she even have a conscience?   
  
Logan would have an answer, she thought, and she felt no older than 9, in the same gown, with the same shaved head. She wanted nothing more than to saunter into Logan's suite, with dinner just out of the oven, and a bottle of wine, which always made her feel like royalty, and tall, tapered candles that would slowly burn down over the evening into stubs that would flicker and go out while they were still talking. And Logan would be able to make her feel like her problems weren't so pressing and he would give her that warm, slow look that melted her knees and made her want to run away and shout and cry with happiness all at the same time. And at least twice, they'd forget what they were talking about, and she would beat him at chess and... the drugs were still in her bloodstream, she decided, because she was daydreaming like a fool, pretending that she would ever be back in Logan's life. She would probably never even be back in her own life.  
  
Max tucked her knees to her chest, and cradled her smooth head, allowing great racking sobs to escape as tears swept down her face. The irony of it all was that she could, finally, fully, admit that she had fallen in love with Logan, and knew, bleakly, that Manticore could take even that from her.  



	7. Seven

Brittle, Chapter 7  
15 March, 2001  
Author: Ellen Million  
Webpage: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com  
Archive: ask  
  
************  
  
"Doc!" Gen walked into the pharmacy with a bright smile pasted on her lips. "I've got an overseas assignment and need some stock."   
  
Doc, who went by that name for no one but Gen, was the short, stocky type who looked as if he could bench press an elephant and not break a sweat. He'd been in several armed conflicts, but preferred the order of his shelves and pills. He grunted, and took the form that Gen handed him. He scanned it, and Gen reminded herself, silently, not to look nervous. "You're feeling conversational today," Gen quipped. She had spent several hours on Logan's computer using art programs to forge a number of supply and release documents, some of which she hoped were not put under scrutiny. She'd even spent time with the chiseled edge of one of Logan's fancy pens to emboss a seal into the thick paper on some of the documents, much to Logan's frustration. "I can't just flit into the Seattle base at any hour of the morning without raising suspicion," Gen had explained to him impatiently. "I'm scheduled to go in every other week on Mondays. Tomorrow is Monday. No one will notice if I am a week out of sync at the regular time. They will notice if I come onto the base at two in the morning. Now stop hovering over me and go pack or something." Logan, looking abashed, had wheeled himself into another room.  
  
Doc scrawled a signature at the bottom of the form, apparently satisfied by its authenticity, and commented gruffly, "That's a mighty pile of Tryptophan-D." He dropped the form in a desk tray and stood up.  
  
Gen let a flash of pain cross her face and turned away as if she were hiding tears. "My seizures have gotten worse," she said quietly. She turned back with a brave face. "The Old Man doesn't want to raise suspicions by having to request such an odd item from a pharmacy in Asia."  
  
Doc nodded; sympathy looked out of place on his gruff face. "It'll take about 20 minutes to get this together for you."  
  
Gen smiled at him, letting a little wobble at the corners of her mouth betray a hint of uncertainty. "Thanks, Doc." She leaned towards him impulsively and kissed his cheek. "You're the best."  
  
She left pretending to wipe a tear from her cheek, and let no hint of her inner glee show in her body language. She took an ironic pleasure in using the lessons that Lydecker had taught her so well against her teacher.  
  
The guard at the front gate had been one that she knew, and with gentle, gossipy persuasion, she had discovered that a prisoner had been brought here last night, and that 'he' was being held in the western area of the compound. The compound had once been a manufacturing complex for Boeing, but with the Pulse, production of planes had been moved almost exclusively to Asia and to Australia and the army had taken over the large plant when Boeing had gone out of business. Lydecker had an office in one of the sprawling place's west wings, and Gen knew that he would want to keep Max close to him.   
Gen glanced at her watch and shifted the black pack on her shoulder. It was a trendy-looking leather bag, nicer looking than her sheepskin coat, but it had the advantage of looking like a purse and handling cargo like an ox. Twenty minutes would leave her with just enough time to carry out the rest of her plans.  
  
The first stop was one of the back-up generators for the base. It was simplicity to set the timed cutter at the outlet lines, hidden below the controls cowling, and to turn the fuel valve off. A soldier came by on patrol just as she was finishing, but she stayed behind the generator housing until he went on by; he wasn't looking around, and appeared to have only a cursory care for maintaining his beat at all. For once, Gen was relieved that economic times were hard. The government didn't have much to pay its employees, and that meant they didn't feel an awful lot of commitment to their jobs. Which was fine as far as Gen was concerned.   
  
With ten minutes down, Gen sauntered across the main parking area, flirted with one grateful soldier, and headed for one of the electrical hubs in the westernmost building. She picked the lock to get in, much more skilled than she had let Max guess, and eased into the room with a smile of pride. The compound hadn't been designed for military standards; most of the security was add-ons, and during an economic crunch, fancy electronic security was primarily un-funded. Upgrades were un-heard of, and even the existing systems were showing their age. Gen was able to put a timed short into the magnetic door locking mechanism for the building, and, not for the first time, she was glad that she had snagged a pile of digital timers from one of the distasteful contacts she had established under Lydecker.   
  
She locked the door on her way out and walked back to the pharmacy.  
  
Doc had her medicine laid out for her. Tryptophan-D enough to keep her good for about a year, if the seizures didn't get too bad. She planned to give half of it to Max, of course, and it was stronger than standard Tryptophan, so perhaps 6 months worth for herself, maybe a year for Max, whose seizures weren't as frequent. Two bottles of a supplement that increased her naturally low mucus levels, and one bottle of Sulphihydrominate*. Perhaps a months worth. Gen suppressed a shudder, looking at the last bottle in the lineup. She hadn't told Logan all of Lydecker's methods of retaining her loyalties. Gradually over the first several months in confinement, Lydecker had fed her the sulpha-based drug, first to see if it could do anything for her brittle bone problem or her seizures, and later because it improved her reaction time. Unfortunately, the drug was highly addictive, and her blood's ability to carry oxygen was nearly entirely dependant on it after 6 years.   
  
Doc was in the back room, and came out wiping his hands with a steri-pad. "I called Lydecker about the Sulphi treatment. He said you weren't scheduled to pick any up until next week, and I shouldn't worry about it."   
  
Gen eased one hand into her pocket and willed her heart to start beating again, keeping her expression still. She liked Doc, and had desperately hoped it wouldn't come to this. "Liking people has no bearing on what I have to do," she thought fiercely to herself.   
  
As her fingers caressed the action on the 38 in her pocket, Doc continued. "I told him I just wanted to get some work done ahead of time." He walked around Gen and shut the door behind her. He handed her a slip of paper. "This is the name of a doctor in Renton who can supply you with the Sulphi supplement. I went to school with him."  
  
Gen felt her face slide into something expressionless. She took the slip of paper with her free hand, keeping her right hand in her pocket. "You'll be in trouble for this." She shot a look at the cameras that decked every high security room in the compound. She could feel the muscles in her legs, taut and ready to leap away from the trap as it sprung. Surely there was a trap.  
  
Doc sighed. "I don't blame you for being mistrustful. But I took care of the cameras, and I can manipulate the records on the medicine. Gen, not everyone at Manticore approves of the program. You think I haven't had serious qualms with some of the prescriptions I've been asked to fill? It's a job. I do it to feed my family, not to meet my moral requirements. You got the short end of a really short stick, and some of us think you deserved better." He gestured at her hand, still hidden in her pocket. "You probably would have killed me anyway. Manticore's training is top of the line, and I didn't have any illusions about you doing anything other than taking me out if I were in your way. Lydecker did a good job on you, kid. And I'm not sure that's a good thing."  
  
He leaned back against his desk and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'll sleep better knowing you're out of here. It soothes my conscience knowing that I've helped one of you out. Do an old man a favor and leave. For good."  
  
Gen wished she remembered how to let her face take genuine expressions. Doc deserved better than a Manticore-brand trained expression, but that was all that she had left besides the blank look she gave him now.   
  
  
****  
Author's notes: Coming Next week: What is Logan up to in the meantime? How is he dealing with the fact that Max is back in Manticore?  
  
Things I've worked hard to portray in this story that I'd love feedback on: That the Pulse happened, that the setting of this story is not America as we know it. That Lydecker is not a dumb, faceless, flat bad guy. That Gen is a complex, interesting person who has to deal with being caught in a terrible life. I've tried very hard to keep Max and Logan in character; successfully?   
  
  
*Completely made up, including the effects. Probably a cleanser solution, knowing my luck.  
  



	8. Eight

"Yes, I'll hold." Though his voice held no impatience, Logan fidgeted. He turned up the volume on the cordless and put it in his lap so he could wheel himself to the bedroom.  
  
There was no ease to his restlessness there. His bags lay, packed, on his bed. Nothing extraneous; nothing sentimental. Just clothes for himself and anything he thought might fit Max, his toothbrush and bathroom kit, the razor he used under duress, and an extra pair of glasses. Light glared unkindly from the few framed photos he had, still sitting on his dresser. He turned and wheeled himself out of the bedroom again, desperate to do something.  
  
The computer room was no haven. His computer screen stared bleakly back, a black screen with stark white letters: "Really Delete All Files?" The Y was already typed, but Logan didn't have the nerve to press return at the slowly blinking cursor. A pile of magnetic tape disks lay beside the computer, complete back-ups of the system, and Logan was trying to convince himself to put them on the demagnetizer. It was an admission that he was giving up Eyes Only, his project, his crusade, and he didn't want to think about that almost as much as he didn't want to think about Max at Manticore.  
  
Rather than face it now, he wheeled himself back out of the room and went to the bay window. The sun was streaming in with inappropriate glee, and the sky was spotted with cheerful white clouds. Logan let his hands lie limply in his lap. It was easy to remember the easy laughter that had filled the room when Gen and Max had shared memories, it was easy to remember Max's face, golden in candle light across a chessboard. Too easy. Gen had insisted that he get a few hours of sleep, but it had been restless sleep, punctuated with hazy, frightened dreams and long moments of trying to silence an overactive brain. Now, he felt tired, drained, and achingly unhappy, and he couldn't get Max out of his mind.  
  
"Hello, Logan?" The phone in his lap suddenly came alive, and Logan nearly dropped it in his haste to pick it up and adjust the volume.  
  
"Colin? I have a favor to ask."  
  
"As long as it isn't an ugly cousin who needs a date. I remember the last time you wanted a favor from me. I owe you for keeping those terrorists from blowing up the plant, but I have my limits." Colin had a hearty laugh that warmed Logan even through the phone receiver.   
  
He forced an answering laugh. "No, this one should be a lot less painful. I need to have power cut to the Boeing base at five PM."  
  
There was a moment of silence at the other end. "I suppose I shouldn't ask about this one, right?"  
  
Logan smiled wryly to himself. "I think that's probably a good idea."   
  
Colin's voice was hesitant. "You know, I don't really have a direct hand in most of the plant work anymore. I'm pretty much more of a paper shuffler now."  
  
Logan swallowed hard. "This is really important to me."  
  
"Is it for Eyes Only?"   
  
Logan considered claiming that it was, but felt he'd had enough of deception for the time being. "No, this is personal."  
  
Colin's laugh rang out. "Well, that makes all the difference. Don't think I'm not interested in saving the world, but I'd rather save the butt of my college roommate any day. Even if he did have a flaky major. I'll see about wandering over and accidentally unplugging that area before I take off for the day. How long do you need to do whatever it is?"  
  
Logan closed his eyes and sent a wordless thank-you to anyone who might be listening. "Five hours."  
  
There was a sound remarkably like coffee being spit out at the other end of the line. "You don't ask for small favors, do you Logan. If their generators don't work, the kindly General is probably going to rip me a new exit hole. He might anyway!"   
  
"Don't for a moment think that I don't know what I'm asking for."   
  
There was a suffering sigh on the receiver, and Colin reluctantly agreed to do what he could. Logan smiled grimly, thanked him, and promised to get together for lunch the following week before he remembered that he wasn't going to be in Seattle after tonight. He swallowed his instinct to rescind the arrangement, exchanged pleasantries with a fair measure of discomfort, and hung up.  
  
He wheeled himself into the computer room to return the phone to its cradle and found himself faced once more with the blinking computer screen.   
  
He was still figuratively hitting himself in the head for blabbing to Gen about Eyes Only. It had turned out in his favor, but the admission had been a mistake. He wasn't the stuff of anonymous martyrs, he decided. He wanted the glow of approval, the admiration. He wanted respect that wasn't aimed at his vast amounts of money or good looks. He wanted to do something, not just be something, and it was a thorn in his side that his family, and most of the world, thought he was a spoiled, lazy loner, playing at being a journalist in the manner that rich people play at doing anything.  
  
Logan took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He wondered if Max ever saw through his altruistic 'save-small-children' attitude and saw that craving for approval. Not that he didn't care about his projects. Every case he broadcast, every criminal he exposed, was accompanied by a tremendous sweeping feeling that he was doing the right thing, that he was on the side of the angels and helping this beleaguered city that he loved. But there was a wonderful rush when the nightly news showed clips from his broadcasts, or discussed the repercussion of one of his exposes. Logan wondered if it was similar to that self-satisfied thrill that Max described from defeating a larger opponent in hand-to-hand.   
  
Max... Logan winced. What were they doing to her? Had Gen been right about them keeping her in Seattle? He had no way of knowing if any of her plans, which he only knew in a general sense, were going well, or if any of her assumptions had been correct.   
  
Would he even leave Seattle without her? What was the use? Logan felt, despondently, that he would rather stay and let Lydecker try to torture information about the other x5s out of him than leave without Max. A chilling image came to mind of meeting Max in the future, a cold, re-indoctrinated Max. A Gen-like Max, who could lie and manipulate and wouldn't ever let herself care about anyone. It had been hard enough to see the Max below the mask up to this point.   
  
With a sigh and a shudder, Logan decisively hit the return button and put the tape back-ups on the demagnetizer across the room. He couldn't quite bring himself to turn the power on. If Gen failed to bring Max back, Eyes Only would be the only thing he had left in the world worth getting up in the morning for.  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Nine

Gen held her breath without realizing it, poised outside of Lydecker's door with her hand on the .38 in her pocket. She hadn't counted on Lydecker having company. Voices rang through the door clearly to her sensitive ears.  
  
"...About enough of your foolish obsession with this project. It's costing us more money to track these kids down than it's worth. Add two to five years of re-indoctrination before we can get anything out of the lost sheep, and your results are still shaky at best. Donald, you're going to need more than a few friends in high places to keep your rank; consider yourself lucky that you can keep what you've got. The other X-5s will not be reassigned to you. Don't ask again."  
  
Fists slamming against desk echoed through the hollow metal door. "My kids deserve better than to be shuffled around by money-grubbing bureaucrats, Colonel. They're soldiers, they don't deserve these pansy-assed babysitting jobs in foreign countries..."  
  
The first voice burst in on what would obviously have been a long tirade. "Don't get all pissy with me, Colonel. In case you haven't noticed, it's not 2008 any more. You screwed up and cost the whole project a lot of embarrassment when the first successful batch escaped. Don't expect funding or favors to fall in your lap when the country's already in financial ruin. We've got better things to spend the money on that than pandering to your stale dreams..."  
  
Lydecker's voice rose over the first voice. Gen wouldn't have needed any augmentation to her hearing to catch the words now. "It wasn't my fault the security system I was promised was manned by flipping imbeciles and only half-installed 6 months late. I seem to recall telling you that..."  
  
"Don't make this sound like it was anyone else's fault! If you hadn't..."  
  
Gen looked at her watch. It was only a few minutes before five, and she didn't have time to wait this conversation out. She toyed with the idea of killing both of them, but dismissed it, against her instincts, moving past Lydecker's door to the hall where she had discovered Max's cell.   
  
  
  
At five, having neutralized the guards on the floor where Max was being held, Gen waited. The lights flickered, stuttered and went out, just after the second hand on Gen's watch swept past upright. "Go Logan," she said quietly, with a grin. She moved to the door, heard the magnetic lock power down, and picked the deadbolt. The door swung inward with ponderous precision, and Gen waited a moment, to see what action Max would take.   
  
It was hard to recognize Max; she was curled into a ball, her newly-shaved head luminescent to Gen's night vision, her blue hospital gown a shapeless, stiff shroud. She looked up slowly, with eyes that were red-rimmed and haunted. The look changed at once to a burning anger, and Max leapt to her feet and charged at Gen.   
  
She was fast, but Gen was faster, and she ducked out of the way at once. Disoriented by the drugs that were still in her system, Max couldn't recover fast enough to change her direction and pursue. She slammed heavily into the corridor wall, and Gen faced her without fear. Two caplets lay in her outstretched hand. "Max," she said sharply. "Lydecker will be here any moment. This is my break for freedom, and I'm not going to get all guilt-ridden about leaving you behind because you're bent on kicking my ass."   
  
Max, leaning against the wall with her head down, gazed at Gen's hand. "What is it?"   
  
"A beefed up tryptophan supplement and a double-dose of adrenaline to get the drugs out of your system. Shots would have been faster, but safe needles aren't easy to find." Gen stepped closer. "Don't take too long to consider."  
  
Max snapped her hand out and grabbed Gen's wrist. The blonde girl didn't struggle or flinch, just waited for Max to act. Max held the wrist for a moment, obviously weighing her choices, then released it, scooping the pills from Gen's palm and dropping them down her throat in one smooth movement.  
  
"Good girl," Gen said. She swung her leather bag off her shoulder and, crouching, pulled out a set of fatigues. "I don't have shoes, but no one should be looking at your feet."  
  
Gen took off her coat and skirt to reveal her own pair of fatigues rolled up underneath. The coat was rolled into a surprisingly tight ball and packed into the bag, the skirt was thrown into Max's holding cell.  
  
Max pulled on the clothing as quickly as she could, wadded the gown and threw it back into the room she came from. Gen pulled the door closed and picked the lock shut. "You're pretty good at that," Max said with bitterness.  
  
Gen looked back at her with a Manticore-standard un-readable expression. "I had a lot of motivation to learn."  
  
There were shouts from the end of the hall beyond the door that Gen had padlocked from the inside. Gen wondered if they'd found the body of the first guard yet. She'd had to kill him; he'd been ready to call in her position and the knock-out she had wasn't fast enough to put him under before he could get the call out. With the hands on her watch nearly at noon, she hadn't had time to do more than fold him up and stuff him into a nearby room.   
  
There was a flicker in the lights and then a wash of brightness as they came on with a hum, and Gen cursed inwardly. They had been faster finding the closed valve on the generators than she'd hoped. "Come on," she said briskly. She pulled the bag onto her shoulder and trotted towards the opposite end of the hall.  
  
She opened the door that ended the hallway, but when Max would have gone through, pulled her back and shook her head. There were tall storage cabinets lining the end of the hall, and she pointed, and then leapt, to the top of one of them. There wasn't much room between the top of the storage cabinet and it was a tight squeeze to shimmy into the space. Max hesitated a moment, listening to the sounds of guards at the other end of the hall, and then leapt up after Gen. She misjudged by an inch or two, and scrabbled ungracefully to pull herself up. Gen grabbed her by the wrist and helped pull her up, but once up, Max pulled away angrily and glared at her. She opened her mouth to say something, but a crash at the end of the hall heralded the destruction of the door, and she just pulled herself back into the space and snapped her mouth shut.   
  
Guards spilled into the corridor. At once, the hall was a chaos of noise: footsteps, orders being barked, the crackle of radios. The open door was spotted at once, and the majority of the soldiers were at once dispatched towards it. Gen smiled to herself as their footsteps faded. The remaining soldiers, led by Lydecker himself, unlocked the door to Max's recently vacated room. Gen's smiled faded. This would have been a much easier mission if she'd been able to take out Lydecker as she'd planned.   
  
"Damn!" Lydecker held up the skirt and the gown. "She had help. I want them found!"  
  
He turned and marched back the way he'd come, and the remaining four guards scattered, posted to either end of the hall, radioing the information to the guards who were already gone.   
  
In a matter of moments, the hall was silent again, broken only by the shuffle of the guards remaining, facing outward. Gen silently removed a blow-gun from her fatigue pocket and slid in two tiny darts. She slithered out into the hall a hairsbreath, just enough to get a good aim at the guards. She waited until she had the perfect shot and fired them, one after another, to land exactly where she'd aimed, in the arteries of each guard. They both scratched the spot idly, feeling no worse than a sudden itch, until they suddenly began to sway in place and fell over in their tracks.   
  
Gen slipped out of her hiding spot and lowered herself over the edge, letting her body stretch all the way down the cabinet before dropping to the ground. Max, behind her, simply jumped, landing in a silent crouch. The guards at the other end of the hall were still looking attentively in the other direction, and the two girls stepped carefully over the unconscious guards and out the door. Gen led them to a stairwell, and then up. She paused at the first landing and pulled Max's face close to hers. Max jerked away, but not before Gen could see that her pupils were a normal size again. "The adrenaline is working," she said quietly, "You should feel back up to par."  
  
Max didn't respond, and Gen didn't really expect her to. She padded carefully up to the next landing. As they moved to the next level, the door to the floor opened, and a guard at the head of three others shouted a warning. Max went into action, kicking the gun from his hands and slamming a fist into the side of his head. Gen hung back, waiting for a clear shot at any of the others. Max didn't give it to her, though, and in a blur of motion swept the feet out from under the second man. As he went to stand up, she snapped the heel of her foot at his temple, and his eyes rolled into his head.   
  
Shots rang out, and Max jigged. Gen darted to the side, and the bullets impacted harmlessly into the concrete walls of the stairwell.   
  
Max was grinning wickedly. She threw an unexpected elbow into the face of the shooter and kicked and rolled at the fourth guard, who was fumbling ineffectively with his gun. The fourth guard went down with a cry, cracking his head on the door and collapsing to the floor. The third guard fired wildly, and Max brought her fist up under his chin with a crack. He fell backwards over the fourth man and lay still.   
  
Gen checked the pulses on them all, and decided to save the knock-out drugs for later needs. Max stretched. "Not that I needed it or anything," she said sharply, "but a little help could have been nice."  
  
"I wasn't trained in combat situations," Gen answered evenly.  
  
Max cocked her head in disbelief. "Why not?"   
  
"I kept breaking bones in even the most basic of training. And besides, I'm expendable." None of the bitterness she felt trickled into her voice.  
  
They didn't meet anyone else on the trek up to the roof. Max walked at once to the edge and looked down at the swarms of troops scurrying around. "Now what?" she asked. Lights were sweeping the compound. She ducked back as one arc of light passed the edge of the roof.   
  
Gen didn't approach the edge, but walked swiftly to a large inverted-L air-handling vent. She pulled off the cover and snugged her bag on her shoulders. She pointed inside, and Max hesitated only a moment before obeying. Gen knew that she had proved it was tactically sound to follow her plans, and that Max would do so until it proved advantageous to do otherwise.   
  
Max hefted herself into the opening and crawled inside. Gen levered herself right behind, after a careful scan of the area, but put herself in backwards, and lifted the grate into place behind her. She crawled backwards with care, making sure that she didn't hit Max with a misplace boot, and dropped herself into the tiny space that opened off of the pipe after it passed the level of the roof. She had discovered this place by chance when she'd happened across the as-built drawings for the Boeing plant. She'd been working undercover at an architecture and engineering company, and while pursuing other items for Lydecker, she took the opportunity that presented itself to delve into their archives, which included the upgrades to the Boeing plant when the military took over. They were a mess, dating from the rough transition to getting computers back on line, but they were clear in the fact that there was a discrepancy in the mechanical shaft where it met the roof. On her own time, she made a point of checking it out. She didn't know what she would do with the knowledge then, but she was grateful of it now.   
  
She settled into a tight position opposite Max, and they both froze as footsteps approached on the roof. The footsteps dwindled, and they relaxed.   
  
"Now what?" Max mouthed at her.  
  
"We wait," Gen said softly.  
  
Max waited patiently for a moment, then squirmed to a more comfortable position. "How long?" She asked, equally quietly.  
  
Gen looked at her watch. "Three hours."  
  



	10. Ten

Max shifted uncomfortably. She wondered if it was Gen's idea of humor to give someone adrenaline and then coop them up in an air-vent for three hours.   
  
The fan below them gave a half-hearted rattle, a shake, and then came on. Max sucked her breath in and held it. The first time it had come on, Gen had gestured frantically, exaggerated holding her breath and tapped her watch, holding up two fingers. It wasn't the sign-language used in combat training, but it was clear enough. The air that was blown past was noxious, nasty stuff, which burnt the eyes, and, even with breath held, smelled bad enough to curdle milk.   
  
It affected Gen worse than herself, making her obviously nauseous. Her skin took a dreadful pallor and a sheen of sweat glistened over her brow. The muscles in her jaw were in high relief and her eyes leaked irritated tears down her white cheeks. Max felt a pang of pity for her before she remembered that she wouldn't even be here if it weren't for her. She didn't know what the blonde girl's motivations were, although she was fairly convinced that Gen had been responsible for landing her back at Manticore. She'd possibly even been the one who had darted her, judging by her accuracy in tagging the guards from the top of the storage cabinet. How many of her stories had been true? Everything she'd ever said had been so benignly possible, so temptingly probable. Had she been raised at Manticore? She was undeniably different in some of the ways that Max was different, and her graceful leap and swing to the top of the storage shelving spoke more of engineering than of intensive training. She couldn't have lied about her brittle bones; Max had felt the finger break herself.   
  
One minute. The air continued to rattle past.   
  
Choosing this space for a hideout was admittedly intelligent. The foul air that swept past every 30 minutes erased any hint of their scent to any dogs that may have been put on their path, and the air was noxious enough that any human who couldn't hold their breath would have expired. One group of guards had inspected the air-vent carefully, even to the point of starting to pull off the cover, but timing had been fortuitous enough that the fan had rumbled up, and the resulting wave of air had sent the guards coughing and stumbling away.   
  
Max wondered how long it had been since they'd gone to hole here. She'd tried communicating with Gen via arm signals, but Gen didn't know the signals that she did, and tried to talk back in what Max recognized as American Sign Language, but couldn't understand enough of to keep the train of a conversation. They'd given up quickly, and Gen grew sicker and sicker each time the air rushed past.   
  
The fan motor shrieked to an un-oiled stop, and the blades rumbled down slower and slower until the airflow faded to almost nothing. The two continued to hold their breath, waiting for the clear air from above to circulate slowly in.   
  
Gen tapped her watch and held up one finger, then five fingers, then pointed above. 15 minutes until their exile ended. Max wished she knew the plan, supposing there was a plan, but satisfied herself with knowing that their wait was nearly over. She took a tentative breath, and satisfied herself that the atmosphere was breathable again.   
  
Gen took a shaky breath as well, though it didn't help her color at all. She looked dizzy, and Max had a moment of concern that she would be a liability in this escape. Then she remembered the fierce declaration that this was her escape and the hard, determined look. She smiled to think that maybe that hard stubbornness was something that had been engineered into both of them.   
  
**  
  
At the nearly the end of the fifteen minutes, there was suddenly a distant explosion, and Max could see Gen's face flash into a smile so brief she wasn't sure she'd seen it. A regiment of running feet rushed past the air-handler, and after the shouts died away, there was silence on the roof. Gen un-crimped herself, and hauled herself up the tube and carefully out. Max followed her silently, grateful to allow blood to flow to unused muscles again.   
  
Gen's color improved drastically out in the fresh air, and she took a moment to stretch her limbs conscientiously. Max followed suit, and it helped her own clarity of thought. "Now what?"   
  
Gen paced to the edge of the roof, alert and keeping a keen eye out for motion. The glow of fire was clear across the compound, near the East entrance. There was activity over there, shouting and milling of soldiers. A dog barked in the distance. "Back down. There's a service van leaving in ten minutes." The door to the stairwell was locked, but just as Gen twisted her wrist to read her watch, Max could hear the magnetic lock suddenly power down. "Perfect." Gen pulled the door open and ran down the stairs.   
  
Max followed closely; she didn't trust Gen further than a cat with feathers in its mouth, but she was obviously on a tight schedule, and her game plan so far had worked well.   
  
"I put some clothing with my scent over at the East entrance, and rigged a minor explosion. That will keep them busy while we get out at the Southwest entrance." Gen took the stairs two at a time, and Max matched her. The loading bay they ended in at the lowest level held several service vans, and one of them was being loaded by bored-looking men in fatigues.   
  
"Tell me they aren't going to make stupid excuses and delay us," one of the men was whining to another.  
  
"God Franklin, I hope not. If I have to listen to you complaining about staying late again, I'll shoot myself." Unkind laughter.  
  
Max and Gen darted, un-noticed, to the far side of the van, and, at Gen's arm motion signal, leapt lightly to the top of it and lay flat. Max quickly decided that all of Gen's plans relied too much on being still for long periods of time. It was tactically sound, but too boring, and Max found herself feeling fidgety and her fingers itched for action.   
  
After a time that wasn't as long as she'd feared, but much longer than she'd hoped, the van started up and trundled out of the garage.   
  
The compound was large, and it took several minutes to get to the gate, Gen and Max lay pressed to the roof. There, the van was met by a squad of men who did a thorough check of the vans contents and checked the ID cards of the driver and his crew. "We've got two crazies loose on base," one of them explained apologetically. His radio crackled and he stepped apart to listen to it away from the noise of the van. Gen and Max both listened carefully. Max couldn't quite make out the words, but Gen apparently could, because she hissed, "We were spotted from the tower, they're going to try to close in on us without scaring us off." Max turned her head unobtrusively and could see the tower in question, a light still sweeping randomly across the compound.   
  
"Run for the fence?" she suggested.  
  
Gen nodded. "Can you take out two of the guards on our left?"  
  
Max snuck a look over the side. "Yes." There were four guards, but they were holding their guns loosely, and two of them had their safety's on.  
  
"Lights go out in 20 seconds," Gen whispered. "Do it then."   
  
Max nodded.  
  
Twenty seconds came, and then ticked past again, and Gen furrowed her brow. She opened her mouth to revise the plan, but was stopped as power once more died on the compound. The light in the tower blinked out, the lights over the entrance died. The soldiers shouted, and two shots rang out as Max leapt off the van. Two of the soldiers at the left of the van were dead, shot through the forehead by the small gun that Gen had pulled from a pocket.   
  
Max disabled the remaining two in no time; they were blind in the sudden darkness, and crumpled like rags with one blow. She turned to find that Gen had lowered herself from the van, and they sprinted in unison for the fence. A good leap had them half way up, and a fast scramble and they were over the top, if somewhat hindered by the wire, and then the shots began. A powerful flashlight was trained on them. "Jump!" Max thought she'd shouted it, but wasn't sure.  
  
She leapt down to the gravel below, Gen matching her out of the corner of her eye. She landed in a crouch and turned to see Gen, who had not jumped, but dived, from the top of the fence. There was a sickening crunch as she rolled out of it, and she stood holding one arm in an awkward position close to her body with the other. "I can still run," she said grimly, and they sprinted in the direction that Gen led them, away from the base and towards the city. Shots were futilely hailed in their direction as the base disappeared into the darkness behind them.  



	11. Eleven

Logan jerked awake. He had fallen asleep in his chair in front of his blank computer screen, one hand resting on the phone. His eyes felt dry and stiff, and his back and neck ached from the awkward position he'd fallen asleep in. For a moment, he couldn't remember why he was sitting with his computer off, but Max's capture and the surprise of Gen's betrayal and reversal came back to him so quickly that for a moment he felt the shock of it all over again. His glasses had shifted while he slept, and he settled them more comfortably on his nose.  
  
It was dark out; a smoldering, fretful kind of dark. Logan twisted his arm to read his watch. It was nearly eleven. Fingers raked through unruly hair. He was surprised to discover that he wasn't afraid for Max anymore. He felt more numb than anything else. As if the whole hellish affair were something happening to someone else.   
  
He suddenly had an urge to double check the tickets and sector passes that were lying on the dining room table. He had only checked the four times before: two people, one-way, to Geneva. His story was simple. He was a man of means, traveling to Switzerland to inspect his bank. Max was his assistant, and their sector passes, like their plane seating, were first class. He'd pulled every string, called every favor and used every piece of underhanded blackmail that he had. He'd even burnt some of his bridges, but he wouldn't leave without Max.  
  
The stack of disks still sat on the un-powered demagnetizer. They teased Logan, even as he turned his back on them.   
  
In the dining room, looking out the big bay window at the dark city, was a bedraggled figure in a sheepskin coat with a hood. Logan knew he should have felt surprised, or frightened, or worried, but all he could feel a tingling despair. "Gen?" he whispered, but even as he spoke, the figure turned, and he knew just by the way she moved that it was Max.   
  
And then he could feel again, first a dizzying leap of relief and hope, followed in a roller-coaster rush by a stinging terror that it wouldn't be the Max he knew anymore.   
  
In two strides, she closed the distance between them, and Logan had a split second to fear for his life. But she lifted him out of the chair and enclosed him in a desperate embrace that was somehow ferocious and gentle all at once. "I'm never going back," she whispered into his shirt. The hood had slipped off to reveal her shaven head, already showing dark prickly stubble. Logan held her fiercely, one arm around her shoulders and one hand at the back of her neck. "I will never let you."  
  
It was awkward letting go. Neither of them knew exactly where to look, and it was clumsy getting Logan back in his chair.   
  
"They shaved your gorgeous hair," Logan said, once he was safely back in his chair. He wondered as soon as he'd said it if it was an insensitive thing to say.  
  
Max shrugged and smiled. "It grows fast. No big dealio."   
  
It was the first real hint of her old self, and Logan felt enormously relieved.   
  
They stood and looked anywhere but at each other for a moment, and Logan suddenly said, "The disks..." He turned his chair and wheeled into the computer room. Without hesitation, he flipped the power switch on the de-magnetizer. The tape disks didn't change outwardly, but Logan could picture the files swirling together like ink on a page suddenly splashed with solvent.   
  
Max had followed him. "Were those your Eyes Only save-the-world disks?"  
  
Logan looked up at her. "Everything. The hacking programs, access codes, contacts. Saving widows and small children was getting old, you know." The attempt at humor fell flat.  
  
Softly, hesitantly, Max said, "You know, you didn't have to do that. You could have taken those with you, started over in another city. You don't even have to go with me. We can go separate ways. You'd be safer without a bar-coded ball and chain."  
  
Afraid of her answer, Logan asked, "Do you want to take separate paths?"  
  
There was a pause in which Logan's heart did not beat once, an agony of waiting.   
  
Then, "No." She was looking at her bare feet again. "Gen..." she faltered. "Gen said that I was taking my gifts for granted. That I had a lot in my life that I didn't appreciate. She was right."  
  
Logan wondered what else Gen had told her, but only asked. "Where is Gen?"   
  
Another ghost of a smile from Max. "She told me we were parting ways. She threatened to drug me and call you to pick me up if I didn't let her go. I believed her." The smile faded. "Of course, I believed her before, too."  
  
Logan chose to be grateful that Max wasn't as... damaged... as he had expected. She seemed haunted, but hadn't retreated into herself, or cracked. All over again, he felt a certain amount of awe for her strength of spirit.  
  
"Where are we going?" Max had a trace of her old flippancy back. "Himalayas? Egypt? Or did you book us a romantic cruise in the South Seas?"   
  
"Anywhere you'd like," Logan said sweepingly. "But first to Switzerland. We can tour the world once we've settled some banking, or find a house in any country you please."  
  
Max grinned as they moved back into the dining room. "I could get used to that. But first, do you have anything to eat? The military is stingy with rations for runaway genetic monsters in solitary."  
  
Logan gave Max her tickets and sector pass. "There is a tub of chicken salad and some sandwiches in the fridge. You can eat in the car on the way to the airport."  
  
Max looked down at herself. "But fairy godmother, I haven't got a dress for the ball!"  
  
Logan mentally smacked himself for not remembering. "There are clean clothes on the bed. I hope they fit." They'd been delivered by Sacks of Seattle earlier that afternoon. "I didn't think to get you any shoes, though."  
  
One finger touched the dark stubble on her head. "No one's going to be looking at my feet with my scalp shining like this."  
  
"How do you feel about head scarves?" Logan ventured.  
  
"Ugh." Max shuddered. "I'll deal."  
  
When she emerged from the bedroom, she looked a changed person. The jacket was a little snug across her shoulders, but the skirt was flattering, and the shirt looked lovely. She'd scrubbed the dirt off of herself, and, though she was still scratched in several places, they looked less like barbed-wire scratches and she looked less like a waif-ish war victim. She'd found a bandage in Logan's bathroom and wrapped one of his socks onto her ankle. His slippers looked enormous on her feet, and her leg looked lumpy rather than swollen, but at a glance it was a wonderful disguise. The scarf that had come with the outfit was wrapped in a lopsided turban on her head. It didn't completely cover the fact that she had no hair, but she looked ethnic and exotic, and a casual observer might assume religious reasons for her hairlessness. She held the plate that her sandwich had been on in one hand.  
  
Her expression was doubtful, but she waved away Logan's compliments on her appearance. Her voice was soft and pensive when she finally spoke, returning the plate to the kitchen as if they would be returning sometime soon. "Are you sure you want a genetic freak of nature like me holding you back? I will probably be hunted for the rest of my life. Do you know what you're getting into?"  
  
"Are you sure you want a chair-bound cripple to slow you down?" Logan countered. This he had anticipated. "I'm not exactly an ideal catch myself."  
  
"Says you." With a relieved smile.  
  
"Max, we have plenty of time to talk about this on the flight. I know what I'm getting into." Followed by the thought, 'Do I?' Followed by the thought, 'Does it matter?' If Max was with him, things were right in the world. He would give up Eyes Only to follow her to the ends of the earth. He would give up anything he could for her. And how often does that happen in this strange, brutal, dark world? He loved Max, knew that with clarity of vision that man is rarely gifted with. He wasn't sure what it was between them, or where it would go, but whatever it was, it was so precious and rare and fragile that it was worth any pain or heartache to realize it.   
  
If their relationship was strange, how much more so their lives? One a genetically engineered killing machine with sexy legs, the other a wheel-chair bound man with an over-developed moral obligation. Logan wondered if there would ever be peace of mind for either of them, no matter what continent they chose, or where they ran. Peace, he finally decided, was not the kind of descriptor that would fit easily on their shoulders. But now, leaving his apartment and his life behind, he felt a kind of contentment settle into his heart.   
  
It was enough that they were together.   
  
*********  
Authors notes: Whew... this chapter was a killer to write, and I'm not sure the timing is quite what I wanted it to be yet. (I'm also a bit concerned that the last few paragraphs are disgustingly clichéd...) There is one more to come (You want to find out what happened to Gen, right? Right?!).   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	12. Epilogue

The sun was just beginning to color the mountains. Max, perched on the balcony rail of the hotel room, was suddenly homesick for the sunrise in Seattle as viewed from the Space Needle. It was the same sun, but half a world apart, and she hadn't imagined that she could miss that dingy city so much.  
  
She had come full circle in the past 6 months. She was back in Switzerland where she and Logan had begun their whirlwind world tour. And she felt as homesick and out of place as she had when they had first touched down in Geneva. Unbidden, images of her last day in Seattle were haunting her.  
  
Her hair, shoulder-length now, stirred in the breeze, and she remembered with photographic clarity Gen, crouched in the dark under the train tracks, binding her limp arm to her side and explaining to Max that this was where they parted ways. Her arm hung as if it had new joints, and Max knew that it was broken in several places. From the way she removed her fatigue shirt, it was probable that her collarbone was broken, too, but she only hissed at Max when she made a tentative move to help.   
  
"Look Max," she said through clenched teeth. "You don't know when you've got it good. You're gifted, you're strong, you're brighter than your average bear and you've got loyal friends. And what do you do with it? Steal stuff? Feel sorry for yourself? Wait for people to remark on how beautiful and talented you are? So you had a crummy childhood. Everyone thinks they had a crummy childhood. You wouldn't even be working for Logan if he weren't working for you. You've got this fantastic opportunity to do something with yourself and you play these stupid mind games with a great guy and act like your all that." She gave a little gasp as she tightened the shirt binding her arm to her midsection.   
  
Max was furious at this point. "What, like you're a shining example of moral fortitude."  
  
They had argued for a heated moment, and Max could remember every hurtful word that they had traded. She didn't want to remember it, though. She knew now that Gen had only been honest. When Logan told her as much of Gen's story as he'd been told, Max had felt overwhelming pity. She tried to imagine being raised in a loving family and being thrust into Lydecker's caring hands. She had been trained to a lifestyle that Gen was completely unprepared for. Her family was turned into pawns before her eyes, and there was nothing she could do about it. Max had never realized as clearly as then how lucky she was to retain her freedom. Even under the crush of Lydecker's heavy handed manipulation, Gen had made her own choice, made her own break for freedom, knowing full well that she would live with the repercussions of it forever.   
  
Where, Max wondered, was Gen now? With at least an arm broken, where would she have gone? Hospitals were as taboo to Gen as they were to Max, and visiting her family was inviting a death warrant. Perhaps she hadn't made it out of the city at all.   
  
Max put a hand in front of her eyes. She was feeling maudlin, as she often did when she was bored. Traveling the world with Logan had been fun, but seeing new places was beginning to lose its charm. She felt like she should be doing something, as if she were wasting valuable time. Logan wasn't entirely happy either, she knew. He wrote, occasionally, impassioned pieces about economics or politics, but he didn't have the same fire about journalism that he'd had being Eyes Only. He swore up and down and sideways that he didn't regret anything he'd done, but Max knew that he missed being the crusader of justice.   
  
There was movement at the door to the balcony, and the object of Max's latest musing wheeled himself onto the deck. "Good morning, early bird," Max told him with a smile. She gestured to a box that was sitting on the rail next to her. "We got a package, but it's addressed to both of us, so I thought I'd wait for you."  
  
Logan, never at his best in the morning, smiled and blinked. "Did you order breakfast?"  
  
Max shook her head. "I thought we could go down to the buffet. It smelled delicious."  
  
She picked up the package, and walked with Logan back into the room. He had turned on the television, and a woman with a thick British accent was relaying the world news. "So, are you going to open it?" Logan asked. He looked as if he was starting to wake up.  
  
"Which one of us is part cat?" Max teased. She used a nail to break the tape at the seams, and peeled back the lid. She had already, out of habit, smelled it and listened for mechanical workings, and had little fear of a trap.  
  
The lid pulled back to reveal tissue paper, and a small pile of magnetic storage tapes. A note was folded on top. Logan picked up one of the tapes and inspected it curiously. There was no label.  
  
Max picked up the note and laughed. It was short, and written in sparse, neat handwriting.  
  
Max, Our dear friend Lydecker has been shipped back to Wyoming in disgrace and the Manticore project has been dismantled. Original Cindy loves her new job, Kendra's new roommate snores and Normal got an ulcer last month.  
  
Logan, Thanks for the loan.  
  
It was signed without salutation, simply: Gen.   
  
Logan turned the tape he was holding over and said with astonishment, "My files? She copied my files?"  
  
Max was delighted. "You can re-start your crusade to save the world." She shrugged and said flippantly. "Never understood why it was worth the trouble, but hey, everyone's got their soft spots."  
  
Their attention was abruptly caught by the television. "Oil prices plunged a dollar or more in the United States following a telling expose from Streaming Freedom Videos in New York. Thought to be local to Seattle, the cable hack has sprung up in four major cities in the past five months. The major network channels are not complaining about the hacks, claiming that more people are watching their stations in the chance of catching another broadcast of the popular unauthorized clips." The woman went on to talk about economic repercussions in Europe of the American gas prices.   
  
Max had to laugh at the expression on Logan's face.   
  
"She stole my show!" Righteous indignation rang from his voice.  
  
"I thought that saving widows and dogs had gotten boring," Max said with a laugh and a bright smile.  
  
Logan, pouting, rejoined, "It's the principle of the matter."   
  
Max put the box aside and balled a loose sheaf of tissue paper. "She didn't exactly steal it, she just borrowed it. She returned the tapes, didn't she? Now come on, my stomach is about ready to implode and I don't want anybody to get to the waffles before I do."  
  
Logan tossed the tape he had been inspecting back into the box. As he wheeled out after Max, he was still grumbling, and Max echoed him. "I know, she stole your show. Come on, Eyes Only, let's go save the world from waffles."   
  
  
*********  
Authors notes. What a monster! This was supposed to be a nice, short piece about a nice, sweet girl named Gen. Hah. Apparently, she had other plans. About two chapters in, she took complete control. That'll teach me to go into a writing project without an outline. No, there won't be any sequels to this unless someone else writes them (you can breath easy, Nevermore!). And I don't mind anyone writing them as long as they tell me and credit Gen to me. Please review! I had so much fun with this, and I love your feedback!!!  
  
  
  



End file.
